Apparitions; Dreams; Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Parapsychology -- Early works to 1900
The sister of the duke, the Countess of Denbigh, dreamed she was with
him in his coach, when the people gave a loud shout, and she was told it
was a cry of joy at the dangerous illness of the duke. She had scarcely
related her dream to one of her ladies, when the bishop of Ely came to
tell her, her brother was murdered by the dagger of Felton. Shortly
before this, a Scotch nobleman asked a seer from the Highlands what he
thought of this Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, then the court favourite:
“He will come to naught,” said he, “for I see a dagger in his heart.”
But the most impressive presage were the visions of an officer of the
wardrobe to the king, as related by the Earl of Clarendon and others.
Parker had been an old _protegé_ of Sir George Villiers, the duke’s
father. On a certain night, in Windsor Castle, he saw, or dreamed of, an
apparition of Sir George Villiers, who entreated him to warn his son not
to follow the counsels of such and such persons, and to avert in every
way the enmity of the people, as he valued his life. A second and a
third night this vision was repeated, and at the last, the phantom drew
a dagger from his gown, and said, “This will end my son, and do you,
Parker, prepare for death.” On a hunting morning this vision was
imparted to Buckingham, at Lambeth Bridge, and, after the chase, the
duke was seen to ride, in a pensive mood, to his mother’s in Whitehall.
The lady, at his departure, was found in an agony of tears, and when the
story of the murder was told, she listened with an apathetic calmness,
as if the brooding over the prophecy had half dulled her heart to the
reality. Well, _the duke was murdered, and Parker soon after died_.
On that night when the Treasury of Oxford was broken open, Sir Thomas
Wotton, then in Kent, dreamed circumstantially of the event, and, I
believe, named and described the burglars.
A clergyman, whose name I forget, was once travelling far from his home,
when he dreamed his house was on fire. He returned, and found his house
a smoking ruin.
I may here cite a very curious dreaming, which, though not exactly
fulfilled, displayed at least a strange coincidence in three minds. The
mother of Mr. Joseph Taylor dreamed of the apparition of her son, who
came to take leave as he was going a long journey. She started, and
said, “Dear son, thou art dead.” On the morrow, a letter came from his
father, expressive of anxiety on account of this dream. The son
instantly remembered his own dream, at the same hour, of having gone to
his mother’s room to bid farewell.
There are many warning visions, which, being happily regarded, were
blessed by the preservation of human life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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